


Defend Rather Than Keep Safe

by Atrailis



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, fitz thinking, relationship not primary focus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 06:40:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13312581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atrailis/pseuds/Atrailis
Summary: Fitz builds a new gun and has some thoughts to process.





	Defend Rather Than Keep Safe

 

It had been nine months since they got back, nine months of resurrecting their organisation in the eyes of the world, resurrecting their own reputations. Nine months of recovery for everyone, interrupted as it was by the need to put down the latest threats, clean up after the latest incursion or investigate the strange happenings which seemed to get more and more frequent.

 

Nine months, and here he was sitting in a darkened firing range working on a new weapon while everyone else was sleeping. He couldn’t sleep, his mind was racing, processing what needed to be done to the weapon in front of him, processing the input from the day.

 

The weapon lay in pieces in front of him, the dull brown casing split apart as he soldered in a new potentiometer and embedded controller to the activation mechanism of the weapon. His laptop off to the side, the screen providing additional light to the three LED lamps he positioned to help him see the electronics he was working on. The latest control software had gone smoothly into the controller and all the diagnostics indicated it should work. Now it was the moment of truth, diagnostics and simulations were one thing, but the real world likes to make fools of us all. It likes to trip us up, likes to see us stumble even in the areas we are most confident in. And more often than not, those we are not confident in.

 

This was something he knew all too well, why he had retreated to the gun range to work this night. He didn’t want to try and process everything in front of the others, to try and work out on his own what he needed to learn. Maybe it was his own foolish pride which drove him to this, his own embarrassment. 

 

His hands moved on auto-pilot, reassembling the casing of the gun. They had been on an investigation of a new 0-8-4 as the old term would be. They had been summoned by reports of an unusual object and its effects on plant life in its vicinity. The artefact seemed to spur the growth cycles of plants by a huge factor, leading to crops within three miles shooting up quickly then dying just as quick. Weeds and other plant life had soon overrun the farmland, and new species never seen on Earth before began to get mixed into it. All in all, it was a fairly tame mission by the standards of the last few years.

 

Coulson had decided to take the lead, getting out from under the bureaucracy that had become his day to day life these days, frustrating the old agent no end. He had tagged Mack, Daisy, Simmons and myself to go. While it had seemed overkill for this mission, no one had questioned it, the chance for a science mission had thrilled Simmons and myself.

 

It was too good to be true, a cliche if there ever had been one, we retrieved the artefact, between Daisy’s abilities and Mack’s efforts, we physically obtained the artefact in short order. Then they came, some outfit who wanted the 0-8-4 for themselves. No logos or insignias but a damned boatload of guns and the willingness to use them. 

 

Unfortunately for them, we had far too much experience in this area and in short order they were subdued and we were on our way. Not before one of them had tried to take down Simmons and well, I got over-protective and all that entails. In the words of another, I was yet again all grand gestures and no common sense.

 

The trip home had been a quiet one, I could feel the tension in the air, people were not happy with me. 

 

After our injuries had been treated and the 0-8-4 sealed in a containment vault for for further examination along with samples of the unusual plant species, I had been called into Coulson’s office.

 

That had been an experience, I’ve taken some reprimands and anger before, but this was a bollocking that had been building for a while. Coulson lost his top at me, ranting and raving about my lack of common sense, failing to trust others to do their job, trying to be all sacrificial. And I stood there and took it, my face showing my embarrassment at yet again failing to learn from others, from what they kept telling me to learn from. I had no defence against what he was saying, I was too blinded by my selfish desires to keep Simmons safe from harm that I couldn’t see beyond that to myself and everyone else.

 

He finished his tirade at me, indicating that if it weren’t for the lack of agents and scientists available to him for active missions, he would bench me until I could control myself. He told me to report to May immediately for and I quote, much needed lessons in self-discipline and good field order.

 

He dismissed me after that. Outside I noticed that several agents were watching as I exited his office, hastily averting their gaze. I knew they had heard what had been said, that I had said little and Coulson had read me the veritable riot act. I think in some ways they were shocked, that one of his original team was getting verbally dressed down, and others probably felt it was about time, that we got a little too much leeway in our actions in comparison to everyone else.

 

Looking at it now, from an organisational viewpoint it was probably best that it was me who got called out first, there were no real lines of management that lead to me, so no issues of respect or authority were put under strain. Simmons headed the science and tech division, Mack managed the garage and maintenance division, Daisy leads the powered agents and May ran the field ops. I was just an engineer and scientist who happened to have been around since the start. Though it was embarrassing to say the least.

 

Indeed the conversation with May was just as disconcerting. She didn’t go mad or angry, but was just calm, collected and damned if it didn’t make me feel about 3 inches tall. She laid out her plans for me, how she would go about training me. I could feel the disappointment in me pouring off her even if she never said anything or showed any indication. I was an agent of several years now, had done things few others had but still my emotions overrode my judgement in these cases. 

 

After the wildly divergent approaches from the two most senior and respected agents on the base, I had retreated to the gun range, where I am now. Thankfully most of the staff were leaving or had left and I could carry out some work in the quiet range.

 

Now, the reassembled gun was in front of me. I looked at it, the dull brown casing, short shoulder stock and filled in snub barrel. Had anyone looked at it, they would have thought it a prop or a fake gun used in self-defence training, but it was a real weapon. A design I had been working on quietly for the last two months. 

 

Maybe it was working on this gun, maybe it was the quiet, maybe it was the words of Coulson and May or the looks from the team as I processed it all. But things started to fall into place, the futility of my desires apparent to me. 

 

I couldn’t always keep her safe, or keep anyone always safe. For someone to always be safe, they couldn’t live, no one could live that way cocooned away from the realities of life. It was a cruel fate to inflict on anyone, much less those you loved. It placed an impossible burden on them, that they would live with the knowledge that you died purely for them. While it appealed to that romantic notion of dying to save the one you love, it wasn’t fair to them and it wasn’t fair to me. 

 

And to hide from the realities of life, people couldn’t grow, and while our lives had been filled with horrors, there were the good things as well, the strength borne from overcoming the bad and all the other things that made up a real person. Only a real person could love and be loved, all other alternatives would be fake. And what we had was not fake, it was real, it was complicated, dangerous, beautiful and real.

 

And we were real people, not some cardboard cutouts or statues on a pedestal, we loved, we failed, we succeeded and we endured. How could I take that away from her, from us?

 

I would always be protective, but maybe it is not fair to say we want to keep them safe always. Maybe it is better to say that we will defend them, we will help them defend themselves and them to defend us. 

 

That would be better, to defend, mutual defence against all the world throws against us. I can do that, she can do that, we can do that. 

 

To defend, it means we will not always be safe, but it does mean we are together, united by a shared cause.

 

And I can help her defend herself, not only her but the team. I am an engineer, I can and have build the tools we need, they need to defend themselves. Maybe that is what I bring to the table. I will never be that fighter that May is, the agent Coulson is or any of the others, I am not Mack, Daisy, Elena or Simmons. I am Fitz, the engineer, and I can build what they need to stand up and fight, I can stand beside them not in front of them. As we defend each other.

 

I pressed a button on the range, one of the human form targets Simmons and I had fitted with sensors and actuators to mimic human physiology appeared at the end of the target zone.

 

I raised the brown gun to my shoulder, sighting the target. I turned a dial on the gun then pulled the trigger. There was no visible indication emitted from the gun but the target flailed on its stand as the gun emission hit it. The shot had been silent to the human ear, invisible to the eye. 

 

The laptop on the table flashed with the readouts from the target. No broken bones, no ruptured organs, estimated throwback five metres, simulated result of shot - temporary paralysis.

 

The gun had worked, a non-lethal frequency projection gun designed to incapacitate armoured targets. The ICERs were great but more and more the lack of armour penetration was becoming an issue with our foes. And the lack of human physiology on some of our targets meant that the dendrotoxin was not having the same effects. This gun would not knock the target but would rendered their impulses for controlling their body useless. And worked through armour. It had taken time for him to digest the information from Simmons analysis of human and non-human physiology scans, particularly as he had wanted to make this a surprise for her and the team. Now it would hopefully be a sign, that he could think beyond his own prior thoughts and needs, that he could explain that his purpose was to help defend rather than to just keep safe.

 

He put the gun down and picked up a small metal plate. He affixed the plate into an awaiting groove on the gun. Inspired by the powers of his superhero colleague, he named the gun after her.

 

He put the gun away in its case, the plate reading, ‘The Daisy, Mk I’. The case closed and he cleared his workstation in the range, taking it all back to darkened lab. 

 

He sent an email before leaving to the team, indicating he had something to show them in the morning.

 

Now he would rest, it wouldn’t always be perfect, he wouldn’t always manage to control himself, but now he knew what he needed to do and that was enough to move on with.

**Author's Note:**

> This was more an attempt to have Fitz realize things - it may been happening in the series but I was struck by the words in another TV series that possibly should apply to Fitz's viewpoint on things.
> 
> It was written in a little bit of free time (so apologies for that) and if there are any suggestions or improvements to be made let me know for future reference.


End file.
